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Everything posted by mcnach
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	It's kind of obvious, in a way. What is the best way to publicise your band? Posters? Internet campaigns? Well, that helps if you are well known already. Otherwise people just see a poster with a band name... We have done the above with varying degrees of success. Zero success at first, some success now that there seems to be a bunch of people who knows us and notice when we announce gigs. Having a CD has helped a lot, it seems, as people take it home, others listen to it... But we never really considered playing on the street. Until now. I bought a QTX QR10PA mini PA thingy to put my bass through and everybody else went acoustic. We went to try the set up one evening and within 40 min we had people buying a few of our CDs and giving us money. We did not mean to treat that evening as a proper busking session, but it worked well enough. Next evening we repeated the experience, again for just a little under an hour. To our surprise, we got a surge on Facebook hits, and sold some more CDs online around that time. Aha, so being seen is definitely a good thing! Then we decided to go electric... and bought three mini guitar amps: two Roland Mini Cubes and a Vox Mini. This way we sound a lot more like we do for real. Today we chose a couple of spots and did about an hour on each. It's busy, with the festival and all, so we sold more CDs and made more money, ok... It was also great fun, yes... but we got a girl who books the gigs for a local venue asking us for our details and whether we'd like to play a few nights this month. Result! Then after we finished the second stint, a guy approaches us and tells us he is from a nearby bar that just opened, and they want to start having live music.. so we are playing there tomorrow night and might become a regular spot for us if things go well. So... do you play originals and find it hard to get gigs? Invest in some street equipment and get out there! It seems to work wonders!
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	[quote name='Paul S' timestamp='1375548051' post='2162806'] The manual doesn't seem to mention using the USB as a power source at the early bit when it tells you how to switch it on, only at the very end 'specs' bit in passing. Nothing ventured... I just tried mine and, although the unit powered up, it made a god-awful noise when I plugged it all in. I am guessing it provides enough power to update the software etc but little else. [/quote] that's interesting and disappointing but not all too surprising. However on the Zoom website it does state you can power it up via USB... true, it doesn't go on to say powered up "for what purpose"?
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	The Eno pedal is pretty good I think, whatever the price. It is very good at keeping the bottom end, so a blend knob is not really necessary unlike with many other OD pedals. I used mine (well, the Joyo version, rather, but they're nearly identical) with a Boss LS-2 precisely so that i could blend some dry signal... and I found that although I like to be able to blend dry/overdriven signal exactly the way I want it, I wasn't really gaining anything that way, so I use it straight now.
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	Yeah, I wonder. To be honest, AA batteries are easy to use... I buy big packs of Duracells at Costco and that way turn out very cheap... but if the USB method worked it would be a nice touch.
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	MM Stingray Jazz Fretless Jazz Do I really have to choose 5? ok, and another two Stingrays as a backup! (Fine, make one of those a 5-string if you insist )
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	Take a look at the OCD clones as well. Joyo make one (Ultimate Drive) and Eno Music have another (DSO-2, with a big cheeky and even shameful OCD label on the top too) in a very small sized pedal. The Joyo was around £30 and the EnoMusic was £23 or so, I think. I like the EnoMusic a little better, but they're extremely similar. They will do well very mild OD, nearly clean, and get into pretty distorted territory if you want it to.
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	Good compressor under £100? I like the EBS Multicomp a lot... yeah, it's more than £100, but used can be bought for £80-100.
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	[quote name='fretmeister' timestamp='1375437173' post='2161193'] I'm not sure it is. I use a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2. Lost of money, but fully isolated and silent. And more to the point - would I be paying for more than £150 worth of batteries over my playing life? Definitely. At about £5 for a Duracell 9V that is only 30 batteries cost. If you really are only going to use 1 pedal, then I'd say the Visual Sound One-Spot. That is a great bit of kit. Massive 1700mA capacity, well made and quiet. The only pedals that it seems to have issues with are Line 6 stomp boxes. Bit noisy on them for some reason. [/quote] +1 A good power supply is a must, for me. I don't like the idea of depending on batteries for my pedals, and a power supply is something you keep "for life", to power whatever pedals you may want to use... For me it's worth getting a decent one. So what if one of the pedals I want to power cost me £10? Or £100? What does it matter? Whatever it is, I want it to sound good.
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	I have my eye on one of these things, closely watching the classifieds... especially since I read something about the ability to power this pedal via USB, unless I misunderstood. Has anybody tried that? THat would be really amazing for me. I have a QTX QR10PA battery powered mini-PA thingy that I use to run my bass through for busking. It works reasonably well. EQ is limited and the sound is not amazing, but it works more than adequately. It has a USB slot... and if I could use it to power the Zoom, then that would be perfect as I can use it as an EQ pedal and tuner (and even FX if I wanted to, although when busking we keep it simple)... Is that possible? Or is the USB on the Zoom only for shuttling data?
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	This is an old made in USA EHX BassBalls, not the "nano" version, slightly larger box and input/outputs at the top of the pedal, rather than on the sides. This pedal has been modified to give access to the internal trimpots via two separate knobs fitted on the top, labelled by hand as "Hi" and "Lo", controlling the individual filters. This makes this pedal much more versatile than in its original form. It's one of my favourite pedals, the only reason I am selling this is because I just purchased the nano version, with the same modifications, and the nano fits in my pedalboard while this one was just a little too big and the input/outpus on top made it awkward to fit in my particular set up... so I ended up adding it outside the board. But the nano will fit just fine This could be yours for £40, including delivery. The lettering on top is slightly worn in places due to use, but it's in great condition otherwise. It has a bit of velcro at the bottom. Here is a (not very good) demo of this old pedal, minus modification: [media]http://youtu.be/86VbDeMQom4[/media] I only found a couple of videos (by the same guy) of the modified version, but they are very poor as demo, you can't really hear what the controls do in those videos, unfortunately.
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	Excellent condition, like new except it has velcro at the bottom. Twin filter thingamabob with switchable distortion, yay! £35 including postage a demo to give you an idea of what it does, in case you don't know already: [media]http://youtu.be/KSrypyu7M1A[/media] and another: [media]http://youtu.be/S5SH5972Epo[/media]
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	[quote name='Musky' timestamp='1375428451' post='2161001'] With Overdrive and Reverb, is that not a guitar amp? [/quote] I think it is. A Cube, not a "Bass Cube".
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	[quote name='krazy_olie' timestamp='1375442911' post='2161384'] So erm, turns out it was the lead. Was also getting a very low output from my passive Fender. [/quote] How can the lead be the culprit, when you said the volume drop depended on your switching the preamp on/off? But if you're sure it works fine now... great!
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	[quote name='PauBass' timestamp='1375394060' post='2160822'] I think I'm joining the Bare Club too very, very soon ...I don't know how I'm going to cope with the wait, I've always had everything bought on a next day delivery basis. [/quote] I may be able to suggest something to help with the wait... expect PM very soon
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	I would think so. With the gain all the way down there is no distortion that I can hear, and you can boost it quite a bit. How clean it is it may depend on the bass. I have not noticed any distortion with any guitar/bass... I'll check with my L2000, which has to be the hottest output bass I ever owned... Right... since I was at home, I just spent the last 20min playing with this pedal and tweaking things. Gain and level controls are interactive, where increasing gain results in an increase of volume, especially in the first third of its travel. With the G&L L2000: Gain fully anticlockwise: entirely clean. You do have a bit of boost available from the level control, but not a huge amount. Turning the gain control even a tiny bit clockwise results in noticeable distortion. The L2000 is HOT!. Then I tried a Stingray (actually a USA MM SUB from 2006, but essentially a 2EQ Stingray, same pickup and preamp etc): Again entirely clean with the gain fully anticlockwise. You can turn up the gain *a little* without adding noticeable distortion, which results in quite a bit of clean boost available. The distortion that this pedal produces is very gradual, so even when I could hear a little bit of grit kicking in, it would still be "clean" in a live setting. Last, a Jazz bass, passive with Seymour Duncan SJB2 pickups: Here, you can turn the gain nearly to 50% before you can hear the distortion appearing. It is a very gradual subtle increase, and by 60-70% it's noticeable distorted, if softly so. Turn it up to 100% and you get a clear overdrive (nothing crazy like Motorhead or anything like that, 'though). With the Jazz it worked the best, because it gave the largest amount of clean boost available and also the widest tonal variation, since the focus control only really works when you turn up the gain. So, as a mild overdrive... any bass would do. I think it works best with a Jazz (probably a P, etc). I bought it and used it initially with a Jazz, and that was good. With higher output basses you get into "clearly overdriven" territory faster, and can produced more distorted sounds more easily. The G&L L2000 distorted the minute you turned the gain up away from fully anticlockwise... so it varies. I prefer it with my Jazz. As a clean boost... the lower the output of the bass, the better this pedal would work as it would give you a wider range where you can adjust it. In order to get a large volume boost, you need to turn up the gain control at least 20 degrees or so, and you need a lower output bass to allow you to do that cleanly: The L2000 would be out of question. The Stingray works well, but it's the Jazz that gave me the largest amount of clean boost... I hope this helps a bit!
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	[quote name='apa' timestamp='1375338452' post='2159861'] Do you deliver? BTW email to follow and parcel received and already well played A [/quote] Glad you got it alright! I post it on my way to the airport. I had finished packing in the morning, I had about 40min before the taxi was due... and I saw the box of CDs and thought "it's got to be NOW, or I'll never post this!!!".
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	[quote name='alexclaber' timestamp='1375263951' post='2158917'] If you want your cab to stay looking pretty, get a cover! Functionally the chips won't bother it in the slightest, though we're using a harder tougher plywood now. The cloth is bombproof - you could build trampolines from it: The plywood frame it's on will crack before you get a hammer through it, as some recent impromptu tests proved... [/quote] "impromptu tests" tell me you have that on video, please!
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	[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1375213228' post='2158362'] Yeah, I'm a fan of that sort of thing! I can see how the metal grille would look better matched under your Markbass combo though. [/quote] I was not worried about looks, it was more about it being more solid that way. I am generally careful but accidents happen... Remember Kelburn... I let my Stingray drop to the floor when my concentration was elsewhere (suddenly I could not find my amp lead!)...
 
